Deborah F. Rutter — who, as president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, helped it navigate the
financial shoals that have sunk other orchestras — will become president of the Kennedy Center next
fall.

Rutter, 57, will succeed Michael M. Kaiser — who, after 13 years as president, plans to leave in
September.

Rutter will be the first female president of the center, which opened in 1971.

During her decade in Chicago, Rutter led the orchestra through trying financial times, including
a strike by musicians in 2012. But the orchestra survived when others cut back or closed, and she
won wide praise for luring charismatic maestro Riccardo Muti, who became music director there in
2010.

“She has the universal respect of people in the industry,” said David M. Rubenstein, chairman of
the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, who led the search committee with Anthony
Welters, another trustee.

Just two years ago, Rutter insisted that she had no interest in leaving the Chicago Symphony
when her name came up as a possible successor to Zarin Mehta as president and chief executive of
the New York Philharmonic. Now, Rutter said, she would be leaving the orchestra on solid
ground.

“It’s been 10-plus years,” she said. “I’d rather leave and have people say, ‘What a great job
she did,’ rather than say, ‘She stayed too long.’”

The Kennedy Center is a considerably bigger operation than the Chicago Symphony, with an
operating budget of almost $190 million, compared with Chicago’s $75 million.

As the artistic and administrative director of the Kennedy Center, Rutter will oversee theater,
dance, ballet, chamber music and jazz, as well as the center’s affiliates, the National Symphony
Orchestra and Washington National Opera.

Rutter will also inherit an ambitious $100 million renovation plan that will give the Kennedy
Center new education and rehearsal space, and reorient the building toward the Potomac.
Construction is expected to begin late next year and be completed in 2017.